


bah nau'ur kad bal (to forge a soul)

by brianbrain



Series: ghosts of the past [3]
Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Angst, Eating Disorders, Force-Sensitive Din Djarin, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Panic Attacks, Suicidal Thoughts, Trans Din Djarin, Trans Male Character, fuck me this is totally a mild vent fic, overtraining is not pog, really mild and not a big thing, rewritten at least ten times, you could make this pazdin if you wanted but hell i just wanted bro feels
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-28
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:42:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27722291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brianbrain/pseuds/brianbrain
Summary: "Vod, gedet'ye!" the voice cried. Din registered his body's thrashing, the panic coursing through his veins. A ghost, a ghost! The edges of his vision darkened further,  his breath coming in harsh shudders and--
Relationships: Din Djarin & Paz Vizsla
Series: ghosts of the past [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1594726
Comments: 4
Kudos: 70





	1. white noise

# 0\. white noise

It was all very exhausting, really. The running, the fighting. The killing. Watching people die, each one taking a bit more than the last. The funerals and the rites and the wishing that he could have done better, not let it happen, _helped_ for once.

Din stared up at blue sky through his HUD, the world about him growing dimmer by the second. He blinked slowly, vision blurring, and vaguely wondered if his helmet sensors need tuning. 

"Din!" Someone was calling his name from far, far away. 

Din jerked back to himself at the feel of hands on his helmet, reaching for the release. He could not--

" _Vod, gedet'ye!_ " the voice cried. Din registerd his body's thrashing, the panic coursing through his veins. A ghost, a ghost! The edges of his vision darkened further, his breath coming in harsh shudders and--


	2. white sparks

# 1\. white sparks

Din was a little boy, clinging to the edge of his seat as the ship shook around them: him and a multitude of silent, helmeted figures. Although it was impolite, Din could not through any force of will bring his gaze down to _stop staring._ He did not recognize these people, armored and shiny like the droids that had ~~killed Mum and Da~~ loomed over him moments ago. They were strangers, and he watched them warily, but they too were still. Din got the sense that they must have been watching him back out the corners of their T-visors and talking to each other in those helmets where he could not hear.

The flight dragged on, and Din did not allow himself to wonder where they are taking him as his eyes made steady rounds across his companions. They wore jetpacks and were armed to the teeth, with long knives tucked into their boots and vibroblades along their forearms and a vast smattering of pistols under their cloaks and holstered to their hips and legs. What would such people want with a child?

His mouth was parched, and Din swallowed thickly. Spots danced at the perimeters of his vision, and he pushed his back hard against the wall, straightening as much as he could manage. Din could not fall asleep here, who knew where he would wake up? He tried to control his blinking, counting the seconds between, but--

Din was a little boy, being asked for his name. 

"Din," he finally said, allowing himself to savor the simple syllable that followed his moment of hesitation. But the high was short-lived, shattered by a familiar blood-red serpent slithering out of the shadows to rear its delicately V shaped head. _Little liar_ , it hissed, baring slender fangs. _Liar, liar, liar_.

He tried to step back, to get away from the vicious creature, but Din's body did not respond. Instead, it listened to the directions being given: yes, head down that corridor on the left, take the first right, then the third door on the left, feel free to use any bed that does not have anyone in it, and all the while, the serpent slunk closer. His head nodded, and by then the serpent was before him, its eyes bright and piercing as blaster bolts.

The serpent wound itself around Din, laughed brokenly, and swallowed him whole.

Din was a little boy, standing as straight as he could in the center of an awkward line.

To his left was the remaining half of the once inseparable twin brothers, bright and golden eyes turned dull and watery yellow. To his right was a bitter, old, jaded teenager who walked with hate in his fists and alcohol on his breath, and next to him was the quick fingered weaver, calm as the dark green spools she had favored in the village, but it was a calm that now hid a simmering undercurrent of anger.

A golden helmet regarded them impassively, the forge behind the figure spitting sparks and setting the edges of their fur-lined coat aglow. She introduced herself: the Armorer, their new _alor_.

"Should you choose to stay," began the Armorer in a strong, steady voice, her easy grace settling over the room as she fixed them in a visored gaze, "you will be trained to walk the Way of Mandalore. You will learn to fight and die as a Mandalorian, to love and to be loyal to your new clan. You will swear the Creed, and live by it, as with the six actions of the Resol'nare."

The Armorer paused.

"Should you choose to leave, we will do everything in our power to ensure a safe transition. The choice is yours, _ade_."

Din chose to fight, and all the while the serpent hissed, _weak little liar, weak little liar_.

Din was a little boy, malnourished, as someone commented once, the disgust radiating from their voice and the tilt of their helm.

It was a disadvantage, and he felt it keenly down on the sparring mat with his arm twisted painfully behind him -- had that been a crack? -- and his ankle throbbing.

"You betrayed me," the weaver hissed above him, the hurt and rage overwhelming even through her shiny green helm, speckled with a faint hint of gold. "And you fight _worse_ than a _girl_."

Din did not answer. He wondered if he might need to steal more wrappings from the medcentre.

Din was a little boy who listened to the rumor mill with only half an ear.

It was nothing the serpent had not hissed to him before, after all, nothing that he would not hear anyway as his small frame was knocked against the walls of the compound. It mattered not how much he scurried around the edges, yet suddenly a different name was whispered in the halls more than his, along with with _neduumyc_ and _shupur_ and _nibral._ At first there was also _nu draar,_ and then word came that this one had been moved down into the lower level classes. The _nu draar_ s quickly left the narrative.

Din did not give the news much thought. He had other things to worry about.

Din was a little boy who had had little kindness shown to him.

At best it was pity, not true kindness, and he thought he could see it in the new boy's hulking form when he pulled his punches just short and put Din down almost gently. So in the otherwise deserted training hall, Din bared his teeth underneath his helmet and snarled a challenge.

"You can do better than this."

"Hurting an injured _vod_ is not doing better," his opponent replied smoothly, and the serpent laughed at Din, shrieking _weak, weak, weak little liar_. But the other continued, a touch of accusation behind his words. "You want to get hurt. _You_ can do a lot better."

"I'll do better if you do better," Din snapped, neither denying nor confirming the suspicions. Regardless, it was as good as an admission, and Din grit his teeth and ignored his screaming ankle in favor of turning his partner's next swing against his own bulk.

Din was a little boy who only knew how to give, how to give his soul and his body to the Creed, to training, to his _vod_. 

So when someone stumbled into the refresher, blood dripping down their wrists, Din handed over his hundredth roll of stolen bandage without being prompted and and limped out to leave them be. Most of his _vod_ were very touchy about their training accidents.

"Wait!" the figure called, confusion coloring their slightly slurred speech. Din turned to see who it was, who was it looking down at the material woozily, swaying on their feet? "What?" Din heard the boy mutter, a bit to himself, a bit to Din, and then he staggered and tripped over himself before crashing onto a bench.

His vambrances were loose, Din noted, and he moved to wrestle them off in a smear of blood. Training accidents did not look like surgical scalpel incisions, but Din knew better than to ask. The boy stayed silent, the stylized blue shriek hawk on his pauldron shivering every now and then as Din ran antiseptic and bacta over the raised slits, wrapped his arms methodically, and dragged him into the barracks to push him into the first empty bed. The rumor mill would go crazy, yes, but probably less than if Din had left him alone in the refresher.

Din was a little boy.

His new sparring partner did not approve, startled after lifting and flipping him over his shoulder as easily as once might do to their favorite vibroblade.

"It's a disadvantage," he told Din.

"I know that," he replied, surpressing a sigh. "But I move fast."

"I will give you that, but an attack based solely on getting inside an opponents reach in the first two seconds of a fight is not incredibly versatile."

"Put me down," Din said instead, and he was dropped like the subject. This did not protect him from the ration bars thrown at him after spars, and Din guiltily gulped them down as the serpent hissed, _look at you, weak little liar, can't even get your own food_.

Din had no idea how he even got the bars, with both of them avoiding the canteen as though it were the Way. He decided that it is better to not ask, adding it to the growing list of things to avoid discussing. 

It was fine. It would be fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'd say it's pretty obvious who the unnamed kid is from the tags, but if you still haven't got it the next chapter is going to help you out there. assuming i manage to marshall the braincells for the task, of course.
> 
> regarding colors: green means duty, gold means vengeance.
> 
> alor: teacher, leader  
> ade: children  
> neduumyc: unauthorized  
> shupur: injury  
> nibral: failure  
> nu draar: never in a million years!  
> 


	3. white fire

# 2\. white fire

Din was growing out of being a little boy.

He held his own easier, picking out his opponents weaknesses on now practiced instinct. A tendency to favor one side over the other, whether it in the left and the right, the legs and the arms, or brute force and strategy, was the simplest and his favorite to take advantage of. His physical performance had improved too, earning him approval from the _alor_ , and his marksmanship greatly appreciated being able to see without the previous, perpetually sickly green tint of a bruise. 

Din's latest assailant was a familiar one, but it was child's play to sweep her legs out from beneath her. " _Cin vhetin_ ," he snarled, the heat of spite rushing in his veins.

The serpent hissed vengeance _, vengeance!,_ and its eyes morphed to gold. 

Din stalked off, leaving his senior on the floor of the hall. If he had to earn his respect, then so would the others have to earn their respect from him. 

Din was growing out of being a little boy.

This was an event that pleased his sparring partner immensely; although it meant more bruises all around, the fight was far more even, far more exciting, far more of a learning experience.

They circled on the sparring mat, each daring the other to make the first move. Din knew he had enough patience to wait out his opponent -- a point proven when he finally got to sidestep a punch to throw a kick of his own.

Like water, Din reminded himself, and drew back smoothly. His partner did the same, albeit slower than usual. Din narrowed his eyes.

"Vizsla," Din called, breaking their customary silence.

"Just Paz," he growled, in a tone of voice that spoke volumes.

"Paz," Din amended, "Eat a kriffing ration bar."

 _Before you collapse,_ he didn't bother adding.

 _How kriffing long have you even been training?,_ he didn't bother asking.

Paz huffed but didn't argue, holding his stance. "After this."

Din scowled at him, but didn't begrudge it. It was concerningly easy to put Paz down, which Din made up for by dragging him to the archives, shoving him into a chair, and slapping a strategy holotape and a ration bar into Paz's hand.

Din was growing out of being a little boy.

After introducing a few more assailants to the taste of the inside of their own helms, less and less were inclined to bother him. Yet the fundamental problem, the one that constantly crawled under Din's skin and told him that this was the wrong place, the wrong time, and the wrong _being_ still culminated with Din getting shoved into a wall a touch harder than usual and shattering five ribs. He drew shallow, gasping breaths, and for the first time in a while waited out the beating to stagger into bed and lay there for a day, still as a rock.

Din had no doubt been capable of staying there far longer without moving an inch. As it was, after an ice cold towel had been wrapped around his burning neck and forehead, Din responded by cracking open an eyelid and dry heaving over the side of the bed.

"What the _kriff_ ," Din bit out, pushing down a scream as tears sprung to his eyes.

" _Me'vaar ti gar_?" someone asked, and on a soldier's instinct Din stumbled through the list: five broken ribs, possibly fractured arm, a knee that still ached, and his throbbing head. By the end of it, he was squinting up at the watery outlines of the figure standing over him, trying and failing to puzzle through the body language. His best guess was Paz, who said something Din didn't quite make out, and then Din was pulled upright into a burst of white.

Din was not really a little boy anymore.

This time, he awoke in the medcentre, familiar with its sterile scent, crisp white walls and sheets and the single row of beds. He was _not_ familiar with the medic, having studiously avoided them; who knew what would happen had Din been caught? He unfortunately recognized the term _aruetti_ , however, and shivered under thin sheets at the sound of the _alor_ s having a chat outside as a wavering black form slunk in the edges of his vision.

"But that goes against the entirety of the Way!" Din heard someone exclaim. He strained to hear more, but by then the medic had noticed his consciousness.

"Sorry kid, you're not supposed to be up," the medic sniffed apologetically, and before Din could protest, he was out.

Din was not a little boy.

He had grown a surprising amount; although ration bars may not have tasted good (when was the last time he had a proper meal, anyways), they certainly got the job done. This was the first thing the medic informed him of the moment the sedatives were finally allowed out of his system, and then they rattled off a long list of items to watch out for: here are the suppressors, don't use your arms too much, surgery was done, let your ribs rest, come get cleared before you are allowed to spar, and yes, just ask and I'll have you discharged. When the medic finished, Din blinked slowly and asked, "How long have I been here?"

The medic considered this question for an achingly long time. "A month."

A whole Manda forsaken _month._

"I can help him out," said the voice belonging to Paz, who had appeared in the doorway. The medic nodded shortly, and Din forced himself to avoid flinching when an arm wrapped around Din and steadied him on his feet.

A month was a long time to not move. They shuffled down the hall, and by the time he had reached his bunk the floor was wavering beneath his feet.

" _Jate ca_ ," Paz told him, depositing him in bed, and flopping into the one across the aisle without even taking off his boots. If he hadn't already been asleep, Din would have wondered why Paz wasn't in his own assigned quarters.

Din was not a little boy.

He had no time to laze around, so when he woke near mid-day to an empty barrack, he dragged his shaking limbs out of bed, donned his armor on pure muscle memory, and took the long way around to the archives. At some point he then proceeded to doze off in a chair, because he startled back to consciousness at the soft tap of boots and almost had his vibroblade half out of its sheath before he realized who it is and subtly sunk back in relief.

"Are you not supposed to be resting?" Paz asked him, pulling out a seat for himself.

"I am literally sitting in a chair," Din responded tightly, and pretended that his chest hadn't just been lit on fire for at least the fifth time today.

Paz grunted, equal parts displeasure and disbelief, but sat down next to Din and produced their dinner before peering over at Din's datapad and tensing. "Really? The civil war? Where did you even find that?"

Din shrugged. "I just did. It doesn't say much, anyways."

"Better wipe it when you are done," Paz says, and Din frowns a bit at the strain in his voice. _It's a lie, all of it is a lie_ , hissed something in the back of his mind, but he brushed it off. There was probably a good reason, he decided, but his stomach disagreed anyways.

Din slipped his rations back to Paz for days, afraid to eat them.

Din was not a little boy.

After a solid ten rotations, his legs itched so badly that he couldn't stand sitting around anymore. Instead, he helped the mechanics in the hangar and made daily trips to coerce Paz off the mats, out of the shooting range, and far, far away from the simulators. Despite the helmets, he could the weariness that slowed Paz's movements, dragging him down.

"Kriff, how did you even survive a month?" Din joked as he plucked out another holotape, but when Paz didn't respond, his jovial mood escaped him. He whirled around a little faster than he intended, let his surroundings spin a little, and stalked over to where Paz was sitting.

Paz's visor was tilted down, not meeting Din's faze as guilt and fear permeated the air. There was a bit of a tremor there, too.

"You know even from a performance based standpoint that this is not the way to go."

"I know," Paz said. "But you know how it works."

Din sighed but didn't press further. He knew.

Din was a grown boy, and he was tired of the rumor mill.

Paz defended the _aruetti_ , the _am'adate_ , it whispered, and what better way to prove him to be an _or'dinii_! Yet he had appealed to the Armorer, after all, and her judgement was as good as law. Din clenched his teeth, half shoving and half falling through the gaggles in the halls to get cleared for sparring.

 _Am'adate_ , the serpent hissed. Its scales had changed now too, to a sleek obsidian black, but its fangs still sheened with dark red blood. Din flipped it the shriek-hawk, and headed for the mats to look for Paz.

Paz was not there.

Din was a grown boy, and he had to grudgingly admit that the rumor mill was just slightly useful for someone who had spent a month in a drugged sleep.

While it called Paz an _or'dinii_ , it also whispered of a death, his recent bouts of _jareor_ , and speculated on the success of his most recent, second-chance mission. It was on Takodana, and Paz's orders were to stay out of sight, stick to the forest, and not cause too much trouble with the locals. He was not to hurt the contact, but to capture them and their ship in the forest.

On a sour gut feeling, Din requested to take a Fang off world. His head hurt.

Din was a grown boy, and he had no illusions of life as easygoing.

He had not had any illusions of that sort for a long, long time, really, but that didn't stop his eyes from flaring wide as Paz fell. His world narrowed: just him, the lake, and Paz; no sound and too much sound, no color and not enough. Din gagged, squeezing his eyes shut, and Paz retched water.

Din hated Takodana. He hated its vibrancy, couldn't manage its air, and didn't dare look at the lake. 

"Venn and Casta said they weren't going to help, that if I was really good enough I could do it without them," Paz told him shakily, and it was so pained and so so very thin.

Din shivered, pushed away the ice knawing at his spine, and goaded the flame back to life. Later, when all was said and done, Paz faced the truth, berated the foolish action.

Paz called him his _ori'vod_.

It felt right, so Din said it back and slipped into sleep.

48 hours later, Paz was limping into the forge. Din waited outside, tapping his foot anxiously. Jahl was going to kill him, yes, but he'd be damned if Paz didn't see her as well. Those suffering from severe blood loss were not known for the best stitches, and Paz had to have the best.

It had been his first assignment in the field, technically, but Din was still never, ever going back to Takodana.

Besides, he had all he needed here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> someone (yike I don't remember who) mentioned that Din enunciates when he's upset. i like that idea so it's here in the form of no contractions for both Din and Paz, because the other way (periods after every word) would make me cry. force sensitive Din also makes a tiny appearance through precognition and the way he senses feelings, but like the tag says its minor and he's not going to start hovering things around or stuff like that, especially since i'm sure they fed them jetti related horror stories. also also, im definitely capitalizing on golden three repetition here. 
> 
> regarding colors: black means justice. 
> 
> regarding tags: i've updated them after realizing this is somewhat dissonant with the rest of this series. i enjoy the headcanon that Din didn't actually get a buir so uh, what can i say? welcome to the chaos of my brain.
> 
> i'm intentionally skimpy on the details of Paz and Din's stint on Takodana because of the companion oneshot found [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27804259). please check it out!
> 
> cin vhetin: refers to a fresh start when joining the Mandalorians  
> me'vaar ti gar: how are you -- used both to ask for a sitrep and casually; demands an honest response  
> aruetti: foreigner, outsider, traitor  
> jate ca: good night  
> am'adate: lit. change person or changeling (not in the official dictionary)  
> or'dinii: fool  
> jareor: suicidal recklessness (not a compliment)  
> ori'vod: big brother

**Author's Note:**

> this was... interesting to write and went through several adaptations; at first it was going to "just be a oneshot" but I got invested working on it over break as a distraction and I decided shorter chapters would make me feel better. I also got lazy with digging around, so after I didn't find anything on wookiepedia I decided to just make stuff up about the good ol' Children of the Watch cult and the Fighting Corps, so this is probably about as inaccurate as things can get. thankfully, flashback-esque style allows me to play somewhat looser with details like where the hell planet you even on, huh??
> 
> vod: brother, comrade  
> gedet'ye: please  
> 


End file.
